A Quarantine Nightmare: Three Weeks in a Hotel, if You Can Find One
HONG KONG — Before boarding her flight to Hong Kong for a brand new job final month, Tanja Cunz made positive she had met all the authorities’s stringent entry necessities. Ms. Cunz, a 34-year-old museum curator from Switzerland, took a coronavirus check, paid for 2 weeks of quarantine at a government-designated resort and steeled herself for half a month with out contemporary air.
But as her aircraft touched down in Hong Kong on Christmas morning, an announcement came to visit the loudspeaker: The authorities in a single day had prolonged the quarantine interval from two weeks to a few, efficient instantly. The passengers must safe a 3rd week at their resort earlier than they might depart the airport.
Ms. Cunz was surprised. Not solely would she should pay for an additional week of quarantine, however she would additionally should postpone her begin date at work by one week, which means a lack of wage too.
“All your plans, they just fall apart,” Ms. Cunz stated in a telephone name from her resort room, from which she will see her future workplace throughout Victoria Harbor.
Travelers wealthy and poor, accommodations and airways alike have scrambled to regulate since Hong Kong abruptly launched its three-week quarantine coverage. At a time when international journey has been disrupted in myriad methods, Hong Kong’s coverage stands out for its size and the confusion it has unleashed.
Some vacationers who had already booked two-week resort slots stated that they had tried to safe an extension, solely to have the whole reservation canceled. Others have tried to scrap their journeys, then found that their resort reservations couldn’t be refunded.
Some home employees, the largely low-income ladies from the Philippines and Indonesia who make up about 5 p.c of Hong Kong’s inhabitants, could also be out of labor indefinitely as a result of their employers don’t wish to pay for a 21-night keep.
The authorities has acknowledged the chaos, asserting final week that it was “very concerned” by stories of value gouging by accommodations. Still, it has defended the coverage as needed to stop the unfold of a extremely contagious variant of the virus. Hong Kong has largely managed to keep away from the form of mass outbreaks which have crippled many of the remainder of the world, aided partially by its strict quarantine routine.
Global vacationers lately face a patchwork of guidelines wherever they go — a patchwork that has been scrambled additional by governments’ race to attempt to hold out the brand new variant. Mainland China requires two weeks of quarantine at a government-designated facility after which a variable variety of days of house confinement afterward. The United States and a few European international locations, however, just lately decreased the really helpful quarantine time from 14 days to 10.
Some scientists have questioned the Hong Kong extension as a result of the virus is broadly thought of to have a 14-day incubation interval. Studies have estimated that between 1 and 10 p.c of coronavirus sufferers could have incubation durations longer than that. The Hong Kong authorities acknowledged that such instances had been “very exceptional” however stated the precautions had been needed.
Hannah Clapham, a public well being professor on the National University of Singapore, stated that whereas a three-week quarantine would “perhaps slightly reduce the number of infectious individuals entering a population,” the federal government ought to weigh that small potential achieve in opposition to the coverage’s steep value.
The 21-day rule was “just to play it safe,” stated Jin Dongyan, a molecular virologist on the University of Hong Kong. Still, he added, “I think they’re doing too much.”
While Ms. Cunz was caught unprepared, these with extra time to rethink their plans have discovered issues of their very own.
Peter Lam, a logistics business worker in Ireland, determined to cancel his return to Hong Kong to go to household. He couldn’t afford an additional week. He additionally apprehensive that the federal government would all of the sudden require a full month, the whole lot of his deliberate journey.
But when he contacted his resort, it informed him the reservation was nonrefundable. Mr. Lam, 33, filed a grievance with Hong Kong’s Consumer Council, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and his bank card firm. After three days, the resort stated it will do Mr. Lam a particular favor and provides him a refund, he stated.
Others have had the alternative drawback. Edwin Edwin, a marketing consultant who was returning to Hong Kong after visiting household within the Netherlands, requested his quarantine resort if he may reserve seven extra days. A couple of hours later, he acquired an e-mail: The resort was full for that third week, so his total reservation had been canceled.
He spent half a day desperately contacting different accommodations. The just one he may discover was twice the value.
In the tip, Mr. Edwin traveled to Taiwan, the place he’s additionally a resident, and is quarantining there for 2 weeks as required. He will ultimately return to Hong Kong from there. Arrivals from Taiwan are allowed to quarantine at house.
“The total trip was supposed to be a month, including quarantine,” he stated. “Adding this all up, of course, it’s going to be a lot longer.”
Others don’t have any selection. The coverage has taken a toll on international home employees, who stay and work of their employers’ houses, performing duties similar to cleansing and baby care.
Such employees already endure low wages and discrimination, however the quarantine guidelines have exacerbated a few of these points, in accordance with Jec Sernande, the secretary of the Hong Kong Federation of Asian Domestic Workers Unions.
One employee was requested by her employer to not return to the Philippines this yr, Ms. Sernande stated, to keep away from paying for her quarantine after she returned. (The authorities started requiring employers to pay for quarantine for home employees final month.) Others are caught within the Philippines with out pay as a result of their employers have postponed their contract begin dates till the quarantine necessities in Hong Kong ease.
“She doesn’t have any work in the Philippines,” Ms. Sernande stated of a kind of employees. “She’s just waiting.”
Even for the resort business, the coverage has introduced complications. Arrivals at Hong Kong’s airport have plummeted from a median of 1,300 every day in November to some hundred most days since Christmas. Occupancy charges for a lot of accommodations hover round 30 to 40 p.c, in accordance with Yiu Si-Wing, a lawmaker who represents the tourism sector.
Some of the federal government’s 36 designated quarantine accommodations have inquired about withdrawing from this system, Mr. Yiu stated. Hotels that obtain visitors for quarantine can not take different visitors, similar to long-term residents or Hong Kongers searching for a staycation.
Cheaper accommodations have stuffed up shortly, however accommodations that cost $65 or extra an evening have struggled, Mr. Yiu stated. The authorities has promised to pay accommodations a subsidy if they don’t attain 50 p.c occupancy. That will in all probability apply to a majority of accommodations above that value threshold, Mr. Yiu stated.
Still, regardless of their complaints, no accommodations have truly moved to go away this system, Mr. Yiu stated.
“From an income perspective, they can’t not do it,” he stated.
The uniqueness of Hong Kong’s coverage is obvious to Louen Tang, a 38-year-old Hong Kong resident. Mr. Tang’s work within the logistics business has required journey even through the pandemic. He has quarantined 3 times already.
Even so, he was unprepared to scramble for an additional week at an inexpensive resort, as he needed to after his return from London final month. But not one of the accommodations in his value vary had availability. Desperate, Mr. Tang set hourly reminders to name a authorities hotline, till ultimately an official informed him he may end his quarantine at a recreation facility close to a rustic park that has been transformed right into a quarantine heart.
“I travel a lot. I understand how different countries handle these regulations,” Mr. Tang stated. “There’s nothing like Hong Kong.”
